Martin Luther King, We Hardly Know You!
A Federal Holiday observing the birthday of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was first celebrated in 1986 after being signed into law in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan. Not until the year 2000 was it observed in all 50 states. In the intervening years many questioned whether a simple Baptist minister who helped organize a bus protest deserves a memorial day on par with those honoring such great Americans as Presidents Washington and Lincoln. Truth is, most Americans know so little about the man, or for that matter, know little of Washington or Lincoln.
Our educational institutions teach us, or force us, to recognize these political symbols with little regard to the background within which these symbolic persons came to be. That each of these men possessed courage there can be no doubt. Rosa Parks had courage as well, but probably not the ideologies and disciplines that would enable Martin Luther King, Jr. to conceive of the framework in which a just cause should be pursued without revenge or retribution and, more astoundingly, without violence. Each of these men had acquired the attributes, both by design and life experience, that would uniquely qualify them to take to task that which history and human events had laid at their feet.
Marting Luther King, Jr. grew up in what he described as a “… wholesome community …” in the Atlanta area “… in a family where love was central where lovely relationships were ever present.” In a compilation of writings edited by Clayborn Carson titled The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
The indignities of segregation was something his father refused to tolerate. When asked by a shoe store salesman to move to seats designated for blacks his father replied “We’ll either buy shoes sitting here or we won’t buy shoes at all.” He relates the aftermath with
“Whereupon he took me by the hand and walked out of the store. This was the first time I had seen Dad so furious. That experience revealed to me at a very early age that my father had not adjusted to the system, and he played a great part in shaping my conscience. I still remember walking down the street beside him as he muttered, ‘I don’t care how long I have to live with this system, I will never accept it.’”
King demonstrated an active intellect at an early age receiving academic acclaim and relating many experiences in his writings from his youth that would forge his beliefs in later life. Among these was that the “inseparable twin of racial injustice was economic injustice” and realizing from his observations that “… the poor white was exploited just as much as the Negro.” This observation demonstrates at a young age what would continue in his intellectual pursuits; to examine every aspect of an issue or experience exhaustively.
In his early years at Morehouse, King would discover the writings of Henry David Thoreau and his essay “On Civil Disobedience.” He would thus develop his early beliefs that noncooperation with evil was a moral obligation and that as Americans we “…are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest.” With a course in Bible studies he learned his professors had a wider learning then the confines of religion. This would lead him to the classic philosophers Plato and Aristotle.
Some years back I remember Julian bond saying something to the effect that King was apt to know more about Hegel and Gandhi than about Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis. At the time I immediately recalled his look during the “I had a dream” speech when he says “… I may not get there with you..” It seemed he knew in the context of Hegelian dialectic that the historical antithesis to Southern segregation was in play and would move forth with or without him. This is what sparked my interest in the man and the development of his beliefs though his belief in Hegel may have differed from what I inferred.
Kings interest in political philosophy accelerated when, in 1948, he entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. His extensive studies would include the political philosophies of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Bentham and Mill. While he would find them intellectually stimulating he always found much to criticize. His quest to understand the human condition led him to Karl Marx, both Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto, as well as critical works by Lenin. He was very critical of their doctrine stating that he
“… rejected their materialistic interpretation of history. Communism, avowedly secularistic and materialistic, has no place for God… History is ultimately guided by spirit, not matter.”
On it’s view of ethics he would write
“I strongly disagreed with communism’s ethical relativism. Since for the Community there is no divine government, no absolute moral order, there are no fixed, immutable principles; consequently almost anything — force, violence, murder, lying — is a justifiable means to the ‘millennial’ end… Constructive ends can never give absolute moral justification to destructive means, because in the final analysis the end is preexistent in the means.
Finally, he would contrast the individuals place in society stating
“I opposed communism’s political totalitarianism. In communism the individual ends up in subjection to the state. True, the Marxist would argue that the state is an ‘interim’ reality which is to be eliminated when the classless society emerges; but the state is the end while it lasts, and man only a means to the end…”
Kings perspective looked beyond the confines of his segregated South to the nature of man and society worldwide past and present. While he believed great inequities existed in western capitalist democracies he didn’t accept Marx’s critique of the modern bourgeois culture. He didn’t believe the struggle between owners and workers as described by Marx was as distinct in contemporary America much to the dismay of liberals today who perpetrate the concept of class struggle.
He was critical of modern liberalism as well. Initially, he gained a great deal of satisfaction from Protestant Liberalism with the belief in mans positive nature. But then he states
“I almost fell into the trap of accepting uncritically everything that came under the name. I was absolutely convinced of the natural goodness of man and the natural power of human reason.”
He recalled the circumstances of Southern existence and the viciousness between the races that made life so unbearably difficult. His historical observations taught him man is inclined to make choices in favor of evil. As he continues
“Liberalism’s superficial optimism concerning human nature caused it to overlook the fact that reason is darkened by sin. The more I thought about human nature the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin causes us to use our minds to rationalize our actions. Liberalism failed to see that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man’s defensive ways of thinking.”
His comments bring to mind the idea of political correctness so ingrained in liberal politics today. He warns of the dangers of false idealism garnered from his studies of Reinhold Niebuhr. He explains that
“All to many had an unwarranted optimism concerning man and leaned unconsciously toward self-righteousness.”
This kind of thinking endeavors to cut off the detailed analysis King had become accustomed to exercising.
Attending a sermon in Philadelphia by Dr. Mordecai Johnson, then President of Howard University, Dr. King would become immersed in the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. As he recounts
“The whole concept of of Satagraha (Satya is truth which equals love, and agraha is force; truth force or love force) was profoundly significant to me. As I delved deeper into the philosophy of Gandhi, my skepticism concerning the power of love gradually diminished and I came to see for the first time its potency in the area of social reform. Prior to reading Gandhi, I had about concluded that the ethics of Jesus were only effective in individual relationships.”
When King entered the School of Theology at Boston University in 1951 he was still struggling between neo-orthodoxy and liberalism becoming more sympathetic with the former. He wrote
“I do not mean that I accept neo-orthodoxy as a set of doctrines, but I did see in it a necessary corrective for a liberalism that had become all too shallow and that too easily capitulated to modern culture.”
It was also here that he began his study of Hegel. While he was critical of his analysis of the dialectic process it was this study, he says, that brought him to see that growth comes through struggle. The culmination of these years of intense study he would sum up stating
“In 1954 I ended my formal training with divergent intellectual forces converging into a positive social philosophy. One of he main tenets of this philosophy was the conviction that nonviolent resistance was one of he most potent weapons available to oppressed people in their quest for social justice. Interestingly enough, at this time I had merely an intellectual understanding and appreciation of the position, with no firm determination to organize it in a socially effective situation.”
It wouldn’t be long before Dr. King would face events that would test his determination and organizational skills in earnest.
While attending schools in Chester, Pennsylvania and Boston King had come to know a life much different than he and his family endured in Atlanta. While not the integrated society we approach today interaction with whites was a far cry from segregation in the South. He had also met Coretta and fallen madly in love. Coretta was from Marion, Alabama and had migrated north to attend Antioch College in Ohio. A mezzo-soprano, she aspired to be a concert singer.
Up to this time, King had considered a teaching carer. Life would be good for Martin and Coretta amid the relative equality of the North. But he felt the calling. They would return to the world of injustice they escaped and wed. Dr. King would eventually accept the position of pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church of Montgomery where history would soon be made upon Rosa Parks refusal to relinquish her seat on a bus on December 1st 1955. [ro_31]